Hi Allan, Of course you should keep unnecessary exposure as low as possible, but don't worry too much. Just don't put your food on the bench (what you probably would not do, when there are no isotopes around). Probably there are lots of more dangerous chemicals around which do not radiate, but nobody cares.
In contrast to 35S, 3H and 14C are not detectable with most standard monitors, so unnoticed spillage of higher doses is is the real problem when there is no regular and careful monitoring like swab tests. I'd be a bit concerned about 14C as it tends to accumulate in living beings (what it does anyway from natural sources, that's why your bones may be dated very well when someone might dig them out again in a couple of thousand years :). 3H has a short biological half life far below it's radiochemical t1/2 and 35S decays quite fast. Have fun! Wo PS: If you think of shocking your radiosafety advisor (or maybe yourself), just hold your Geiger counter into your lab's ceramic sink: Lots of isotopes there (thorium, maybe some radium. Expect the beeper to go off like a rocket). On Jun 8, 5:12 pm, "Allan Jones" <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi! > > There is currently a lot of radiation work going on in our lab and i am > always worried about people contaminating stuff with small amounts of > isotopes the geiger counter does not detect very well (ie tritium, 14c, 35s). > > Now I have looked into the definition of annual limit on intake and so on and > am slightly confused. The ALI values seem extermely high, so does this mean > the amounts (a couple of µCi) we use are not particularly dangerous? > > I do not assume anything is contaminated, but am a worrysome person and some > of the people here seem quite relaxed concerning radioactivity. I guess > however that back in their days its use was much more common. > > What do you think? > > Tom > -- > GMX DSL: Internet-, Telefon- und Handy-Flat ab 19,99 EUR/mtl. > Bis zu 150 EUR Startguthaben inklusive!http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/dsl _______________________________________________ Methods mailing list [email protected] http://www.bio.net/biomail/listinfo/methods
